DAS ALTE LEID

"The Old Sorrow"

• Secondary Characters

Early Life-Monterey

Before Anahita was even born, problems arose in her life. She was an unplanned child who took her parents completely by surprise. Her parents are incredibly fearful to be parents, the example they had as their parents made incredibly damaging mistakes to their children. Satomi especially did not want to be a mother, being pregnant was a horrible, triggering time for her, and she was left severely depressed. Once Anahita was born, Satomi retreated to her room, and Sasha had to take on the role of both father and mother. After enough neglect, Sasha takes Anahita away from their home and leaves Satomi temporarily, watching Satomi abuse their child in real time was to much to just simply reprimand her for.

This doesn't last for longer than two months, Anahita's parents are together again, Satomi left alone with just self reflection was horrified to see themself turn into their own mother who was never there for them, and Sasha realized he simply can't live without Satomi. As a young child, Anahita would always be closer to her father, he was the one who was always there. Sasha refused to let his own troubled childhood be repeated for his own daughter, and fiercely went out of his way to enforce that will. Satomi still felt immense guilt for their own absence and tries to make amends becoming more active a little later in Anahita's life, but the subtle rift between them is apparent.

Schooling

Anahita is a friendly and energetic child who played in sports, but was extremely temperamental. She'd often get into fights with other children who tried to make fun of her, mostly for being a tomboy. The older she grew, the more scrutiny she'd face for how masculine and angry she was. Anahita is very tall, almost 6', has a muscular build, and a very hairy face. She initially felt no shame for these things, but hated the treatment she gets from her peers because of it. Her temperament gained her very few friends once she was in high school.Her one friend that she liked more than simply just a friend was Cybil Acuña, who went by Kitty. Anahita even tried to befriend all of Kitty's friends, but to other girls, Anahita was a pet project. She couldn't catch their passive aggressive comments immediately and she wanted to fit in somewhere badly. In a friend group of girls, Anahita tried to present more feminine even if it was uncomfortable, she'd do anything they say to fit in. Anahita never realized that Kitty was somewhat the same, extremely insecure with her sense of self, and was ever changing aspects of her personality to fit in with others. Around her friends, Kitty was meaner.

Enough teasing and passive aggressive comments about her person and attempts to completely change who she is lead to Anahita beating one of the members of her so called friend group. The pet project was over, Anahita is alone again and now expelled from school. It was a complete shock to her parents, who she did not like to disclose more personal aspects of herself to other than some sudden emotional outburts. Her father Sasha made her switch schools, so her senior year of high school was spent alone around new people she somewhat tolerated. At home, Sasha took on more of a drill sergeant persona in disciplining Anahita, harshly overcorrecting her behavior, In the meantime, Anahita took up smoking marijuana in an attempt to regulate her mood.The time alone gave her some time for retrospection. If she hated being compared to a man so much, why was it so hard to be a girl? Why did acting as feminine as possible feel like nails against chalkboard? Anahita finally caved and spoke to her parents, first her father, who awkwardly and abruptly sent her over to speak to her mother. When speaking to her mom Satomi, things clicked into place; they essentially came out as transgender to each other. Satomi never felt like a woman either, and felt that she was in between being a woman and a man, but closer to being a man. It put into words what Anahita felt, not exactly a man or woman, but for Anahita she felt more like both. Her mother told her about how if she could've transitioned without her family disapproving, she would've, and urges Anahita to actually do it if she really wanted to, her parents love her the same.

Adulthood

The time he sees Cybil again comes when Anahita finally graduates, where she profusely apologizes to Anahita for how she treated him. Anahita takes the opportunity to tell Cybil all the feelings he had, that he loved her at one point. Cybil felt something akin to Anahita's feelings, but couldn't allow herself to be seen dating the school freak. Now that they were adults and no one was watching, to her, she could be with Anahita freely. Cybil reciprocates his feelings. She was determined to be independent from her family immediately, having worked and drove since she was 16, and scored a small apartment. After several rounds of talking, Cybil convinces Anahita to move in and emancipate himself from his parents, reminding him of the sore spot between him and his father, he having inadvertently isolated Anahita from everyone he knew but not finding a way to help Anahita through all of it. Despite his parents' protests, Anahita moves out quickly.Cybil's insecurities tore her and Anahita's brief relationship apart by the time they were 20 years old. Cybil started to break down Anahita's self esteem all over again, she's still scared to be seen with the type of person Anahita is, and Anahita could bare no more from someone who's words held so much meaning. Anahita broke things off and moved back in with his parents. He's angry and heartbroken, still unwilling to open up about his feelings, and hates to be told "I told you so".

Early Life-Iran and Germany

Sasha was originally born Eskander Markazi in Tehran, Iran, son of Fatemeh Aghayev and Mirza Markazi. He lived only with his mother in an apartment for the first 5 years of his life, living at the brunt of the beginning of the War of the Cities until Mirza relocated them to East Germany in the later half of 1984. In their stop in Frankfurt, West Germany, Mirza has Eskander renamed to Alexander so he could more seamlessly integrate. He spends the rest of the year in school despite knowing little to no German and greatly struggles.In this time, his mother Fatemeh leaves him and Mirza to return to Iran in 1987. Alexander can't understand why, all he can see is the one person he always had who loved him leaving him, that he'd be alone with his father that he hardly knew. Fatemeh does not return, and it is the last that he sees of her. It was sudden and out of no where for the then 8 year old Alexander.

As an older child with only his father, Sasha is violent towards other children, never tries at school, and is difficult at home. He had very few friends to play with, and was otherwise poorly socialized. Acting out garnered little response from any of the adults in his life. Mirza doesn't know how to raise such a young child and work his factory job at the same time. Most of Sasha's meals end up coming from his neighbors.

Mirza and Jacek

Sasha and Mirza had never been close. Mirza missed a crucial time window when Sasha was a child, and he never knew how to connect to his son once Fatemeh had left. They spent the rest of Sasha's childhood borderline avoiding each other, interacting only when Sasha is caught stealing cigarettes or having his bedroom door removed due to his ill temperament. As an adult man, Sasha left as soon as possible to live with friends, and rarely ever went out of his way to speak to his father. Once Jacek had left for the US in 2007 and having no one to turn to, Sasha would move back into his father's apartment. At the beginning stumble into his downward spiral, Sasha has a verbal-turned violent confrontation with his father, breaking his nose and cracking two of his ribs. Sasha is immediately remorseful, but is disowned by Mirza. He's not the son he ever wanted, and Mirza is not the father he needed.

Jacek Müller was a boy who lived with his family a floor below Sasha in the same plattenbau building, and was the very first friend Sasha ever made. They were tied at the hip their entire childhood, each other's first love. Into adulthood, things started to change. Sasha would follow Jacek anywhere, he immediately left his father's home to live with him. Their relationship became very intense, Sasha clinging onto Jacek more like a child and a parent then two equal partners. They were in a constant cycle of Sasha overstepping what Jacek could tolerate, Jacek breaking their relationship off, Sasha finding someone else to wean off of, Sasha subsequently being dumped, and Jacek taking Sasha back out of feelings of guilt. Regardless of if Sasha was in a relationship with Jacek or not, he'd enter many flings and short-lived relationships to nullify feelings of being unlovable, which only became attacks on his own self esteem. Jacek knew this, he hated it, but he knew if he completely left Sasha, he'd fall apart completely.Jacek found what he thought would've been the easiest way to escape in 2007; a job abroad, in the Western United States, very, very far away from Alexander. He had went to university for computer science, and was offered a job in Silicon Valley that he gladly took. He left alone, leaving a very heartbroken Sasha behind. For at least a year, Jacek was free, but Sasha was going rapidly into a downward spiral. He ruined his last family relation, he has nothing left in Germany. Sasha sells most of his belongings and hops on the earliest flight to Jacek, who begrudgingly let him back in. After another year of the same old things, of Sasha not being able to hold a job longer than a couple months, of treating Jacek like a nanny, otherwise being a now 30 year old child, Jacek could not take anymore. Sasha is kicked out of Jacek's home and his life one final time.

Suicide Attempt and Surviving

Sasha's greatest fear was always abandonment. His parents abandoned him, the many lovers he took abandoned him, Jacek abandoned him. He was already entering a depressive state by the time Jacek ousted him, but it worsened tenfold once he was out on the street. Sasha would leave San Francisco in the night, driving down aimlessly in the unfamiliar country. He slept in his car, he owned only that. Sasha would live in a motel for the next few months onwards, working now as a grocery store overnight stocker. He lives alone for the first time in his life, completely isolated, he has no future. He doesn't need one, he is going to die. He doesn't eat because he doesn't need to, he is going to die.Sasha survives his suicide attempt thanks to a horrified building maintenance worker and is promptly hospitalized. After inpatient treatment and many outpatient therapy sessions, Sasha is ultimately diagnosed with having Borderline Personality Disorder.The year is now 2011, Sasha is 32 years old. He's set on keeping a job for longer than a year, now a night shift security guard. He's made new friends in the country now, namely another, slightly older, European immigrant named Sulejman Imamoviċ, who helps balance out Sasha's more impulsive nature. Sasha became his roommate after he lost the motel, and Sulejman got him a job that wasn't a fast food chain worker. Things are changing for the better now. In the early mornings when his shifts end, Sasha frequents a cheap nearby 24/7 diner where he becomes familiar to one of the overnight waitresses, a woman named Satomi Tamashiro. By the coming year the two of them are friends, Sasha doesn't mind Satomi's awkward mannerism, he finds them endearing. Satomi is someone he can speak his feelings to without being put into a 72-hour hold, he appreciates how supportive Satomi is. He helps build her confidence, as Satomi is originally very meek. Sasha is becoming a kinder person, a more caring person, and comes to realize that he loves her. Sasha and Satomi enter a romantic relationship in 2013, when he is 34 and Satomi is 28.

Early Life-Honolulu

Satomi is the only child of Chikako Tamashiro, a marine biologist from Okinawa, with no known father. She grew up in her uncle Ogata's home with his wife Haruno and daughter Jeanine. Ogata is the family patriarch and has a troubled relationship with his sister, mainly due to the two of them coming from a Catholic family in Okinawa, but Chikako left the faith and joined an Okinawan new religion, Ijun. This bled into Satomi's life growing up in his house, as the enmity towards his sister at times shifted towards his niece. Satomi's cousin Jeanine picked up the same behaviors and would antagonize and tease Satomi when they were younger children.When Satomi was 10 years old, she was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and social anxiety. For the rest of her childhood, Satomi had very few friends, and typically found herself in escapist activities such as frequent forum scrolling or incessantly playing video games.Satomi and her mother did not see each other often, Chikako worked at a university and worked long hours, leaving Satomi with Ogata's family that more or less tolerate her and her mother. Satomi is chastised at home for her weight, her complexion, her strange mannerisms; she became a very easy target to punch down on, her uncle could make his traditional family look better than his sister's. She always wished her mother was there more to defend her. But Chikako is standoffish when she is present, and the two of them just don't know how to talk to the other. Satomi would remain the black sheep of her family.

College Dropout and NEETdom

Once Satomi graduated from high school she immediately took the chance to leave the family she lived with and applied to colleges on the mainland. Even though one of her major interests that she'd rather study was theology, she chose to go into marine science as to make a better connection with her mother. Satomi also saw the opportunity to "catch up with her peers" as she felt that she'd missed out on social milestones, mostly around having no friends, being in no prior relationships, and still being a virgin. In her classes, Satomi met a classmate in a similar situation, named Adrian Koopman. He took immediate interest in Satomi, and that's all she needed to hear.Dating Adrian meant constantly being asked about Japan and what it was like to be Japanese, which Satomi was, but not truly. Satomi and her family were Ryukyuan first and foremost, always. Hearing about Adrian's far off grandfather who was a Dutch merchant who went to Japan grows tired after the first few times. Being asked to speak Japanese for him after telling him she can't grows tired after the first couple times. Being expected to be a submissive girlfriend and cook him meals after school grows tired. Satomi began to wonder if hating your significant other was just normal, but the hate grew more and more, she hated simply being near him. To Adrian, Satomi was more akin to a living doll, a real life 'waifu', so it came as a shock when Satomi snapped at him and let all of her frustrations out, promptly dumping him.

Satomi would continue to try to date, praying that her relationship with Adrian was just one bad mistake. The more she tried, the more Satomi saw that she was either being used for some form of transaction, mostly her body, or that she was just seen as a woman. It bothered her greatly, to be a woman and be used because of that. Upon reflection, Satomi never even felt like a real woman, more so just playing the act of one so she could garner the attention of men, but it seemed like as if they knew she wasn't a real one. All of the building turmoil in Satomi's love life spilled over into every other aspect of her life, falling into depression, failing most of her classes, withdrawing from most social interaction in general. Stress would make her pull her hair out and bite on her arms. Satomi turned to alcohol to try to numb all of these feelings, but to no avail. Eventually she made the decision to just drop out of school entirely. It is 2007, Satomi is 22 years old.

Satomi did not wish to face her family back home, though. Go back and be told about how much time and money you wasted and become a laughing stock? It was months before anyone knew Satomi was no longer in college. She never moved back to Hawai'i, instead moving into a small and cheap apartment, using whatever money she had left saved for the most bare minimum necessities. Everyday was spent inside on the computer, browsing forum websites or just playing simulator games. The only friends Satomi had now lived in her computer.

Back into the Public

The NEET life was completely unsustainable when living alone, money runs out quickly. Satomi found a 24/7 diner that was hiring night shift positions and became a waitress. Face-to-face interactions seemed impossible now, all social interaction was a herculean task. Satomi became convinced that the people around them were putting on a front, that they all secretly despised them and at any minute would turn on them. They rarely ever speaks to their coworkers during their shifts, every break they'd escape to their car to be on their phone or play on their DS. Everyone else noticed this and thought that Satomi was creepy.Several years later, a new regular comes in the earliest hours of the morning, a security guard getting off of work. There was something so familiar about him to Satomi, it was like she and him were the same. His face was very tired and sad, and Satomi would sometimes get a word in with him. More and more she speaks to him, more and more the man becomes more like a friend to her. His name was Alexander Markazi (but goes by Sasha), and seemed to also look forward to seeing her. By the coming year the two of them are friends, and Satomi feels more confident in interacting with people once more. In being around him, Satomi does some more self-reflection. She really admires him and just how brazen he is; Satomi wants to be like that herself, it almost becomes jealousy. It eventually strikes Satomi that its Sasha's masculinity that she wants.

Sasha becomes very comfortable in Satomi's presence, to her surprise. He doesn't find her off putting like some others do. He confides his own feelings to her, something that's a first for Satomi, it made her feel cared for in a way she never felt before. Time comes where Satomi realizes Sasha loves her, and she does him too, in a way that felt truer and more sincere than from anytime before. The pair enter a romantic relationship in 2013, Satomi is 28 and he is 34.